Saturday, April 22, 2017

Greetings Sheepdogs, I have registered for the 2018 Tactical Conference,http://rangemaster.com/2018-tactical-conference/07:00 on 16 March 2018 to 17:00 on 18 March 2018 in North Little Rock, AR at the Direct Action Resource Center. You should register now, because every year it sells out a month earlier than in the previous year. The 2017 Conference sold out 6 months before the events. For under $400 for 3 days of intense, high information density, useful training, it is by far the best training deal in the country. I love the conversations with the instructors between the scheduled classes. Everyone is so open and willing to answer questions. I saw, Palmetto Gun Club Instructor Bill Hayes at this past conference.

***** Mindset *****

What wins fights?"The will to win and execution of fundamentals."-- Clint Smith As opposed to fancy stuff, taught in many schools to entertain their students. Because they want your repeat business and they want you to tell your friends how much fun it was. Gun schools that teach you to win in combat are not adventure summer camps. Drilling in the fundamentals until you cannot do it wrong is tedious and boring. It takes determination and focus.
G. Gordon Liddy would sign his letters to his
children with the complementary close, "Win".
(Liddy was not a very good intelligence analyst.
He thought Sec. Alexander Haig was Deep Throat.
It was actually Federal Bureau of Investigation
Deputy Director William Mark Felt, Sr.)

I teach self defense. Self defense is combat. I have been in combat training. Almost all persons in our society have never been in combat training. How do you know if you are in combat training? You get dirty, you sweat, you get injured. Because, it is realistic and intense. I love Front Sight. I learned a lot there: safe gun handling, marksmanship, tactics, laws of self defense, how to handle the aftermath including the police and the justice system, etc. I have taken many friends and relatives to Front Sight. Guys will take their wives, girlfriends, and daughters to Front Sight because the instructors are professional, courteous, and there is never any foul language. As Dr. Piazza likes to say, Front Sight is a resort for gun lovers. You don't get dirty. You don't sweat. You don't get injured. (Unless you shoot yourself, which I have seen.) They do not do combat training. None of the civilian gun schools that I have attended do combat training. None of the civilian law enforcement classes that I have attended did combat training. Police departments are, in general, risk averse. They have a very low tolerance for injury in training. When I was at 1st Radio Battalion, Fleet Marine Force Pacific, our detachment went to the California deserts to support a combined arms exercise. One of the facets of intelligence is weather. We informed Lt. Gen. Klingston that the winds were too high and advised him to postpone the jump. He rightly ignored us. He ordered the 82nd Air Borne to jump. Every lieutenant on ever aircraft ordered his soldiers to jump. (If you're not willing to give the order, you have no business being an officer.) They all jumped. They suffered 3% casualty and 1% fatality. (My numbers may be wrong. It was a long time ago.) In combat training, you suffer training injuries. This is necessary. Failure to train properly insures that everyone dies in combat. Proper training insures that not only do the soldiers survive combat, but more importantly they accomplish their mission. We are not there to survive. We are there to win. Training injuries are common. Training injuries are normal. In recruit training, we were on a run and a Private collapsed. The Corpsmen, who were following us in a Jeep, picked him up, stuck an IV in him, and drove him straight to Balboa (Naval Medical Hospital). He died. I don't train law enforcement Special Weapons And Tactics persons. I don't train military special operations individuals. They can take care of them-selves. I train young ladies and old ladies (many with disabilities) because they are the primary targets of criminals. The problem is, the ladies are extremely reluctant to engage in combat training. Some will drop out of the class, because "It's too intense." This usually refers to the lectures and discussion in the classroom, not the physical training. I once attended an ASSERT training class in which a female had a bit of a break down. I didn't know how to help her. I'm not a comforting, hugging sort of person. I'm not writing this to offer solutions. I don't have any. I don't like the ones that I been able to find in the literature. I'm just writing to let you know, you're not alone. Yes, it is difficult. You have to keep trying. You have to keep encouraging your children to keep trying. Some people survive, some don't. Whatever you have to do to survive is worth it. Surviving after you get punched without warning and stomped by a bunch of predators, is good. But, the training allows you to avoid the incident in the first place, or to win the fight if you can't avoid it. You'll still get prosecuted and end up bankrupt, and perhaps in prison. But, you'll be alive. And if you've executed your fundamentals properly, your attackers won't be around to prey on your children or neighbors. So, you will have rendered an invaluable service to your family and community. In the end, we all answer to God.

SHOOT THEM IN THE CROTCHhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE9qooFUqsk Because that's the first place your muzzle will cover. (Because we all carry in a firing side inside the waist band holster on a strong belt, because we are all well trained and intelligent.) You need to be the first to get a hit. When I was in artillery, I actually wore all of my armor including the crotch panel. (As a Staff NCO, I had to set the example for my Marines.) Most of the Marines did not. Criminals won't be wearing a crotch panel. So, your shot placement has defeated their body armor. As Mr. Smith says, level 2 body armor is easily acquired online and lots of criminals have used such armor.

Why IACP's recommendation on warning shots is a terrible ideahttps://www.policeone.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/324035006-Why-IACPs-recommendation-on-warning-shots-is-a-terrible-idea/ In most jurisdictions warning shots are not legally justified. You will be charged with "assault with a deadly weapon", "terroristic threatening", "reckless endangering", or something like that. There is no place to safely aim a warning shot. Anything fired into the ground will ricochet off the asphalt road, concrete sidewalk, or rock in the ground and hit someone, maybe you. Anything fired into the air will come down with near equal velocity as it came out of your muzzle (gravity is a conservative field) injuring or killing anyone it hits. The only places to aim a self defense shot are center of mass of the threat, high thoracic cavity of the threat, or cranio-ocular section of the head of the threat. Anywhere else demonstrates a lack of training. This does not mean you are going to hit that area. It just means you will be able to justify your action at trial.

Know the Ruleshttps://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/standards-part-v-know-the-rules/ You can't play any game without understanding the rules first. (Not just reading the rules.)I learned this the hard way playing Monopoly with my son-in-law. I should have known he was a Monopoly shark when I noticed that he had all of the cards in the game memorized. Self defense is a game that you have to win, because the stakes are so high.